60 dome are now virtual ruins, with the trop- ical jungle closing in on their lyrical, float- ing planes. Ricardo Porro, after being cast aside by the revolution to which he had hoped to give an architectural identity, aban- doned Cuba altogether, and now lives in Paris. His school, however, is a master- work, and it has been more thoroughly rejected by the government than the grandiose classical buildings put up by Castro's predecessors. The current regime, it seems, cannot bear to accept its own parentage of an architectural treasure. I had never heard of the school until Ed- uardo Luis Rodríguez directed me to it, for it has been written out of architectural history as definitively as certain govern- ment figures who fall out of favor are written out of political histo Rodriguez knows it's unlikely that the buildings will ever be :fiilly put back together, but he sees restoring the institute's good name as a du "For young architects, this school is the flag in our war to recover architecture," he says, walking across the former golf course. He insists that I see every nook and cranny of the school: swirling, sensual curv- Ing passageways; arcades that seem like a cross between Gaudí and Le Corbusier; and domed studios littered with broken glass. "Porro wanted to make a statement about disorder against order, tranquillity against tension," Rodríguez said. "This complex started as a symbol of what the Revolution could do in architecture, and then it became the opposite-a sym- bol of what the Revolution didn't want." ' ,,"., : " ' '" , ' f W::.::::. ".-.".-'.- -.:..:. :._.. .. --- - What the Revolution does want, ap- parently, is Eusebio Leal. A scholar and politician-he is a member of the National Assembly, and functions within the high- est reaches of the Castro government- and a relentless, if subtle, self-promoter, Leal has awakened the government's in- terest in the ci Almost single-handed, he has revived Old Havana, the once- decaying colonial core near the waterfront, making it safe for tourists. Leal made restoration into a vehicle for development, just as it might be in an American ci The Old Havana he has made has a pris- tine, slightly too-perfect air about it: Old Havanaland. But the government knows that theme parks are profitable. So the new tourist route in Old Havana includes craft markets on the plaza in front of the cathedral; a church restored as a concert hall; and a Benetton boutigue in the Plaza San Francisco. The tourist route doesn't include the main art museum, which has been closed since last summer for renova- tion, or the Granma, the boat in which Fidel Castro returned to Cuba in 1956, which has been displayed for years behind the old Presidential Palace in a glass en- closure that looks like an auto showroom. The boat is still there; it is just that it has been reduced to a kitschy curiosi1:)r, barely relevant to the new form of tourism, in which Old Havana feels every day more like Old SanJuan. Leal alone decides what will be re- stored in Old Havana. In addition to run- ning the city agency that oversees old buildings and cultural facilities, he con- ", :;.t: ß ..,:. . ...... ;:_,l , '.f,. .}L\ JitJ 'I'm going to New Zealand for a walk. " THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 26, 1998 troIs a state-owned company called Haba- guanex, which develops and runs hotels, restaurants, shops, and offices in Old Ha- vana, and another company, called Fénix, which is a real-estate-management com- pany. You do not do business in Old Ha- vana without running into Leal, whose mini -capitalist empire will bring in around forty-three million dollars this year, twenty-one million of which his agency plans on reinvesting in its projects. (The rest goes to the state.) "Leal does whatever he wants, and no one can say no," a young architect in Ha- vana says. "He treats Old Havana as his private fiefdom." But Leal has largely ig- nored the rest of the ci1:)r, which is off the tourist route and crumbling fast. Leal, un- like many high officials of the Cuban gov- ernment, is extremely visible: he has his own television show, and he can some- times be seen on the streets of Old Ha- vana, surveying his dominion. Early one evening, Eduardo Luis Rodríguez and I ran into him as we were heading toward the Plaza Vieja, the most active restora- tion site right now in Old Havana. A man of medium height with wavy steel-gray hair, Leal dresses in guayabera shirts. His manner is unfailingly courteous, but it is a courtesy that, like his traditional Cuban dress, is designed to create the illusion of accessibili His demeanor is formal and cool, and he greets Rodriguez kindly but somewhat warily; with the tone of a per- son who is not accustomed to participat- ing in conversations he cannot control. Leal's restorations are stunning to look at, and they are technically superb: a staff of sophisticated, mostly young architects has remade such landmark hotels as the Ambos Mundos and the Santa Isabel with elegance and finesse. They consider their work to be important in holding back the onrush of sprawl development in Havana and in asserting the importance of tradi- tional urbanism. Their goals, in this sense at least, are identical to those of the Mi- ami architects' lobby. It is just that Leal's people draw the line at Old Havana; and the lobby (and Rodríguez) are far more concerned about the rest of the city. "I am against malls, and we give a lot of value to traditional neighborhoods. What we are doing is insuring that at least in Old Havana the wrong things will not happen," says Patricia Rodríguez, one of the architects in Leal's office. But these restorations, exquisite though many of them are, constitute a kind of Potemkin village: luxury hotels face picturesque